I take a risk in continuing to write about the many issues caused by EF; to wit, that people will see me as nothing more than a rabble-rouser with an ax to grind. Never fear — I have broad shoulders. I can tolerate that risk. Why? Because this is an issue that does not affect just one person who we may or may not know or even like. This issue affects the entire sex-blogging community. It affects every person who gives their time, energy and work to EF.
It affects even those who have been the most vocal in defending EF. Have a look at the screenshot below, taken from the profile of EF contributor Red Roulette, who blogs at Champage and Benzadrine:
See the “link” there next to “My blog”? To your human eyes, it looks like a link. But hover over it and you’ll see that it doesn’t point to Champagne and Benzadrine. It points, in fact, back to the EF site. Click the link with JavaScript enabled and you will indeed be taken to Champagne and Benzadrine. To your human eyes, this “link” looks normal. (I won’t link to the page on EF’s site but you can find it at edenfantasys dot com slash contributors slash red-roulette)
But disable JavaScript and you’ll see something entirely different. The “link” is dead. It goes precisely nowhere. Dear Red Roulette, who has defended EF with every last breath in his body, gets no reciprocal link from EF.
If you can’t see the link without JavaScript, Google can’t see it either. For all the link-love you pour into EF, they pour nothing back.
I urge you to read this post about long-term, deeply entrenched issues with the sex toy retailer EdenFantasys. I’ve cross-posted it below; you are welcome to cross-post, Tweet, Facebook, email or otherwise share this information with folks the sex-blogging community and beyond. Thank you.
I’m sorry, I just had to laugh when I saw the person you chose to use as an example.
Great choice of example, and WOW.
Very interesting. I’m not an EF affiliate and probably never will be. I do hope that those who are will think about their relationship with EF if they are trying to earn from the site. Thanks, aag. I’ll definitely spread the word.
I have been reading your site pretty much daily trying to find all the information I can about Eden Fantasys and after this, have completely made up my mind to cease working with them completely. After all the drama about them handling the banning of Epiphora completely wrong and then treating all of the people who had a problem with the banning and how EF had handled it condescendingly and then being told that I shouldn’t be “emotional” when posting my disgust with the situation in the forum, I was through. And then this came out and I went right through “emotional” and into “seething.” And then they deleted the entire forum which just proves how unethical and sneaky they really are. They are a company that lies and cheats and it’s disgusting.
So thanks!
If members are locked out of the forums, perhaps they should visit the Facebook page, and ask their questions there? Just sayin’.
Hi AAG! Thank you so much for writing this, as it actually makes a lot more sense to a layman like myself than what maybemaimed wrote – and you using me as an example might have been meant as a dig, but it was beneficial to me because is explained exactly how this issue affected me.
I just went to my EF profile and clicked on the link and watched the EF URL come up, then all sorts of jiggery-pockery performed when I clicked the link. There’s no doubt you’re right about the java stuff – although ultimately the link took me to my blog.
From my point of view, that’s all I’d expected the link to do. My major expectation with having a link on Eden is so that people can click it and read what I’ve written. The fact that it doesn’t increase my page rankings ultimately doesn’t bother me -
But here’s the thing – I CAN understand it bothering other people. My blog is largely a forum for my writing, not a traffic engine. I only have a couple of adverts I’ve sold there. If I was somebody like AAG or Epiphora, who drive their blogs to create traffic to generate advertising income, I would totally be pissed off that this reciprocal link isn’t.
That being said, it’s all determined by the communications you had with EF and what expectations they gave you regarding any links on their website. In my case, I was the one who decided to put a link on my profile and I did so in order for people to be able to use it to travel to my blog – to that extent, my expectations have been met. EF is a commercial website, so I think they do have the right to hog the traffic of a link they’re offering me the opportunity to put on their site.
As in, you presented my link as an example of how I’ve been ‘wronged’ by EF, but I don’t see how legally or ethically they’re wronging me – as they didn’t promise anything different to what was delivered. If I feel ‘wronged’ by their link jiggery pokery, it’s could only be because I had expectations for the link that were different to what they actually delivered. That is my fault, and my assumption, because they didn’t promise me anything different (or anything at all.)
But that’s me. I totally understand that if you communicated with an EF representative and mutually agreed to do a link swap, receiving the benefit of the google rank – and I mean an actual marketing barter in which terms like this were explicitly discussed – than I can understand you thinking that this is inexcusable. It is, undoubtedly. Promising something and delivering something else is outrageous.
However, that’s not what happened in my case – so I don’t understand why you would think I would be outraged. I wasn’t promised anything, so I therefore don’t feel entitled to anything.
I contribute to EF in a variety of ways – with links to their site, with reviews, with SexIs articles and with Eden Cafe posts. In return, I receive affiliate income, free toys, cheques for my articles and gift cards for my posts. Compensation was discussed before delivery and has always been met promptly and adequately. I have received fair value for everything I have contributed – this link nonsense, as it is applicable to me personally, is irrelevant as what ‘value’ you argue Eden are denying me was never something on the negotiations table in the first place.
I didn’t make any formal link-swapping arrangement with any staff members at EF, so they haven’t broken the aforementioned agreement. They offered me the opportunity to place my URL on their site and since they received nothing in return, I really have no right to make demands about what form that link takes, as long as people who click on it are delivered to my blog.
If the case is different with you, I totally understand being mortified. If they broke an ACTUAL agreement with you – that you made verbally or via email and involves a discussion of what form that link will take – then that’s unforgivable of them.
But if your links are just like mine – ones you entered voluntarily on somebody else’s commercial website – you clearly made assumptions. In fact, I hate to say it, but from a legal standpoint, if you agreed to have a ‘reciprocal link’ and didn’t specify anything about the exact form it took, Eden have arguably delivered what was legally promised, because the link will direct people who click it to your website.
(This all depends on what the LEGAL definition of a reciprical link is – and that’s not what you or anybody else *thinks* or *assumes* it is, but what a US court of law *dictates* it to be.)
You might not get the page ranking because of the way they’ve hidden it, but unless you made that a part of your deal, I think you might not have a leg to stand on legally.
I think it’s fair to say that it’s in bad form – my immediate understanding of reciprocal links is that they are there to help increase page ranking on search engines, so it is a fair assumption that Eden would deliver the links in this form. Yet, as somebody on maybemaimed’s website pointed out, it’s hardly a unique practice amongst adult web stores.
Also, I think many of those with the resolve to step back and look at this objectively will see that they are in the same position as I am. If you’re only talking about the link on your profile, or in any pieces you’d written for Eden Cafe, you don’t have any entitlement to dictate what form that link takes, as long as it ultimately does deliver people who clicked on it to your website.
I’m not defending this practice by Eden, but I think some people feel they’re entitled to certain things with their links to Eden Fantasys that they’re legally not.
That being said – further to something Britni said – if they’ve been doing this with the links to the manufacturers, I’m almost positive that will be a breach of their contract (I work in an ad agency and we have legalize regarding this sort of issue.)
So this might have serious implications for them that way – with companies that have legitimate legal expectations that aren’t being fulfilled.
How are you even remotely defending this? This is REALLY, REALLY BAD. Not only that, Google itself calls it “unethical,” and this can lead to some serious repercussions for them. Do you think that you’re not worth as much as the retailers that work with them? It’s like a slap in your face, and basically a “fuck you.” To all of us. It’s the ethics of it that are the problem. And all the people that put their name on SexIs Magazine columns are having their own name tarnished and reputation affected, becasue it’s THEIR NAME on the article with unethical linking. There’s no defending this.
C&B,
Your loyalty is admirable but completely misplaced.
Google calls this practice unethical. It’s not how linking is supposed to work and it’s not how any other website (including the ones Fred linked) handles links.
If you are so thick that you won’t look at the evidence and SEE how appalling this is, then I can’t help you.
“it’s hardly a unique practice amongst adult web stores.” Examples plz?
Yes, I’d like to see these examples. Where. When. Links. Citations.
Please.
good thing you don’t have a sense of entitlement or anything.
Um, wot?
If someone makes a claim, I’m going to ask them to back it up with examples. Sorry if my logic offends you. Are you drinking again?
To be more specific
Also common practices among “adult web stores” is an appeal to anonymous authority http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/authority_4.htm . Point out logical fallcy is not “entitlement” (Lovely coincidence I was writing a “sex and logic” article for Edencafe that discusses this very fallacy, when this shitstorm began)
You fallacies will not work at this time please hang up and try your fallacy again.
You must work for EF.
AAG – The only example and evidence of other sex toy companies doing this comes from Tom Allen, in the comments section of Maybemaimed’s post which you copy and pasted (so I’m surprised you missed it.) He said:
But because other companies do it doesn’t make it ‘okay.’
Britni & AAG – I went to google and read their ethics thing and so even I can’t really argue that it’ not unethical by their standards – and they’ll probably get seriously kicked in the ass for it. It isn’t illegal, though (and as Sarah Sloane pointed out, they even have a clause in their contract to cover their ass: “Author agrees that company has it’s own discretion to format editorial material, embed advertisement, hyperlinks, and visual arts within it…”)
But just because it isn’t illegal doesn’t make it ‘okay.’
As I wrote, as a blogger who receives toys, money and gift cards from them, I personally don’t feel I have any reason to feel wronged – but I do accept that the ‘spirit’ of reciprocal links has definitely been compromised. In addition, I think Eden Fantasys will probably be in serious trouble with Google and their web partners.
Lots of other companies — sex toy companies and otherwise — try to engage us in ABC or triangle link exchanges. It’s gross, and I don’t think most of us fall for it.
But what EF is doing is a whole ‘nother ballgame of nefariousness. They LOOK like they are giving return links — and they aren’t.
Illegal? Probably not. Unethical? In my book, fuck yeah.
ps–I’m blockquoting the piece you quoted above from Tom Allen to make it a little more clear.
C&B, if you still want to do business with them in the face of overwhelming evidence that they lie through their teeth, then you have high threshold for asshattery that frankly isn’t becoming of you. :)
I’m not a code reader, I haven’t really explored the business side of my blog at all, and my stats dont really interest me. So I’m a little slow on the uptake here, but I’m kinda getting the feeling that EF is stealing from you. If clicks on your links are being counted as clicks on EF links then they are stealing your clicks – one of the most important measurables on the business end, one of the few things that translates into actual dollars.
Of course, ‘If they broke an ACTUAL agreement’, that would be one thing, a legal kind of thing perhaps, but agreement here means agreement on the definition of “reciprocal”, which is not really a difficult word.
Hello All,
You can always join an ethical sex toy affiliate program with Vibrators.com – http://www.vibrators.com
just saying….